Chapter 548: - Leveraging Authority
“Count, these are today’s memorials.”
“Mm. Put them there.”
“Yes, Count.”
Count Pingye washed his hands, sat down at his place, opened the first memorial, and began reading.
Beside the Prince’s central command tent now stood a second command tent, slightly smaller.
It was much larger than the simple sleeping tent Count Pingye had used before, and he now had an independent work area of his own.
The Prince of Jingnan would occasionally leave the encampment to inspect the various armies. Sometimes Count Pingye went with him, but most of the time he remained here, reviewing the memorials that arrived every day.
At first there had been some novelty to it. He always felt as though the burden of a million soldiers and civilians had suddenly been pressed onto his shoulders.
After enough time passed, after enough days of reviewing memorials...
Mm.
It still felt like a lot of pressure.
Because you truly did not dare act recklessly, did not dare lower your guard, and certainly did not dare muddle through perfunctorily.
Even if eighty percent of the memorials were nearly identical, you still had to read each one carefully.
Some problems in the reports required someone to make a personal inspection, whether among the civilian labor columns in the rear or at another army’s camp. At first, Zheng Fan sent A’Ming to handle those errands. Later, he simply had Gong Lin and Gongsun Zan do them.
Whenever those two young men saw Count Pingye sitting there helping the Prince of Jingnan review military reports, they practically regarded him as a god.
Count Pingye himself, surrounded by blessings he had grown accustomed to, might not feel it so deeply. But to Gong Lin and Gongsun Zan, reviewing these memorials was already far beyond anything a mere trusted subordinate should be permitted to do.
The Prince of Jingnan’s favor toward Count Pingye had never been concealed in the slightest.
And Count Pingye himself had never failed to justify it. Every battle he fought ended in victory, and almost every victory was a great one.
So under circumstances like these, everyone in the army had only one reaction left: conviction.
Great Yan had existed for a very long time, but true large-scale expansion beyond its borders had only begun in recent years. In almost any country, when the state entered a period of outward expansion, the atmosphere within it, and especially within the army, tended to rise with it.
In peacetime armies, seniority, cliques, factional hills, and personal connections were unavoidable.
War against foreign enemies opened a genuine path of advancement for soldiers.
If Count Pingye had been born in the State of Qian and shone this brightly, he might very well have been suppressed, perhaps even tripped up by friendly forces. The various Qian armies usually had their own great figures at court pulling strings from behind. The armies fought at the front while every ghost and monster in the capital fought another war of their own.
Which was why, even now, no one knew what the Qian were doing at the Three Frontiers. There was still no movement.
Great Yan was different.
Because the will from above was carried downward so completely, everyone below neither dared entertain other thoughts nor had time to entertain them. The overall atmosphere remained remarkably pure.
No one cared about your foundation.
No one cared about your birth.
They cared about ability.
If you truly had talent and truly earned military merit, then people acknowledged you.
That was why whenever Gong Lin and Gongsun Zan received an assignment from Count Pingye, they threw themselves into it completely. Outside, they even carried themselves openly as though they were Count Pingye’s trusted retainers.
And that was exactly the effect Zheng Fan wanted.
Bind the two younger men firmly to his side, and the two older men would have no choice but to follow him wholeheartedly as well.
The forces of Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi were no thin family holdings.
Once both were integrated into his own power after the war, he could truly establish his headquarters and unfurl his banners in eastern Jin.
A’Ming lifted the tent flap and walked in.
“Master, the prisoners have been brought over. Also...” He paused. “Luo Ling and Wang Mi are here too.”
Luo Ling was an old Chief Commander of the Jingnan Army.
When Tian Wujing took up the title of Marquis of Jingnan and rebuilt the Jingnan Army, Luo Ling had been among the first commanders promoted.
Wang Mi, meanwhile, had risen from the local military forces of Huwei Commandery. When the First Prince took command of the Eastern Expedition Army, Wang Mi answered the call and joined him. He fought on and off until the First Prince returned to the capital after defeat and later went to Nanwang City, while Wang Mi’s force remained behind.
There were clear ranks within the army.
The core Jingnan Army was naturally the direct line.
Li Fusheng, Gongsun Zhi, and men like them had originally come from the Zhenbei Army, making them half direct-line at best.
Someone like Wang Mi was closer to miscellaneous troops.
Even so, his status still stood above the commanders of the Jin armies.
Ordinarily, Wang Mi would never be foolish enough to cross horns with Luo Ling. They both held the title of Chief Commander, but the difference in their actual standing was enormous.
Unfortunately, this matter involved Assistant Generals under their respective commands.
As a commander, no matter whom you faced, you had to grit your teeth and stand up for your own men.
Otherwise the troops became impossible to lead.
The incident had begun like this.
Two days earlier, Luo Ling’s forces had captured a Chu military camp. The Chu commander broke out with his personal guard, so one of Luo Ling’s Assistant Generals, a man named Xu Guang, led troops in pursuit.
At the same time, an Assistant General under Wang Mi named Huang Qi had been pursuing a group of Chu scout cavalry.
Both parties chased their targets into the same forest.
After a round of killing, the Chu were wiped out.
That should have been the end of it: two Yan units working together to destroy the enemy.
Instead, somehow, both sides began accusing the other of stealing heads and military merit.
The soldiers nearly drew weapons on one another.
And then, more absurdly still, when the two Assistant Generals failed to settle the matter by arguing, they decided to duel in front of their men.
When Count Pingye first read that part of the memorial, he happened to be drinking tea and nearly choked.
What could you even say?
Praise them for knowing enough restraint not to order their troops into a full-scale brawl?
Two Assistant Generals, in front of their own soldiers, on the battlefield of the campaign against Chu, each mounted on a horse with a saber in hand, had begun the most primitive possible contest between generals.
And they fought for a long time.
Both were wounded.
Neither retreated.
In the end, they drew the attention of Li Fusheng, who had been so bored after taking West Mountain Fort that his teeth itched. He happened to be wandering around with a squad of personal guards looking for prey.
Li Fusheng originally thought he had found some enemies.
When he came closer, he discovered two little bastards from his own side dueling each other.
He immediately ordered his personal guards to surround both groups, then personally rode forward and separated the two men.
If Luo Ling or Wang Mi had arrived first, the matter probably would have been smothered quietly.
But Li Fusheng came from the Zhenbei Army and did not belong to either camp.
So he reported the whole affair.
And because the Prince of Jingnan had recently stopped handling this kind of business altogether and handed everything to Count Pingye, the memorial eventually landed on Zheng Fan’s desk.
Count Pingye looked at A’Ming.
“What do you think? Better to handle it in my own tent, or in the Prince’s command tent?”
The Prince of Jingnan was not in the central army today.
A’Ming answered:
“This subordinate thinks that using the Prince’s command tent would make Master look guilty.”
“True.”
Count Pingye nodded.
“Bring them in.”
Before long, Xu Guang and Huang Qi were escorted inside with their hands bound.
Both still carried wounds.
Then Luo Ling and Wang Mi entered.
Luo Ling came in with imposing momentum. He nodded once toward Count Pingye, who sat behind the desk, then calmly stood to one side as though he belonged there.
Within the Jingnan Army, whether someone had come from the old front army, the rear army, or had only joined in recent years, no one was stupid enough to keep debating whether Count Pingye truly counted as “one of their own.”
Their own Prince had sent his son to be raised in Zheng Fan’s household.
How much clearer could the answer be?
Wang Mi, on the other hand, bowed with hands clasped.
“Greetings, Count Pingye.”
For a Chief Commander who had risen from local forces, holding his ground against Luo Ling had already been the limit of his courage.
Acting arrogant in front of Count Pingye as well?
He did not dare.
Nor was there any need.
In truth, Wang Mi knew very well that the Count before him had originally risen from local forces too.
Zheng Fan had first been from Beifeng Commandery, then transferred to Cuiliu Fort in Yinlang Commandery as its garrison commander.
If that was not a local military background, what was?
But Zheng Fan had gained the Prince of Jingnan’s favor early, climbed through military merit after military merit, and risen so quickly that no one dared call him some local strongman anymore.
The thought left Wang Mi looking at Count Pingye with a trace of inexplicable grievance.
The meaning was roughly:
You betrayed your class!
“Greetings, Count Pingye. May the Count enjoy health and fortune!”
“Greetings, Count Pingye. May the Count enjoy health and fortune!”
The two Chief Commanders could still preserve some dignity.
The two bruised and battered Assistant Generals kneeling in the middle had no qualification to display any pride at all.
Count Pingye leaned back and put his feet up on the desk with a sigh.
Luo Ling stepped backward and sat on the chair behind him.
Seeing this, Wang Mi pulled his own chair over and sat as well.
Two men knelt in the center.
Three men sat around them.
The scene truly did resemble a joint trial by the Three Judicial Offices.
Count Pingye first looked at Xu Guang and Huang Qi with a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Then he looked toward Luo Ling, sitting below him on the left.
Finally he swept his gaze toward Wang Mi on the right.
“You still have the face to sit?”
Luo Ling turned his head in surprise and looked at Count Pingye.
Wang Mi immediately lifted himself off the chair and stood.
Count Pingye kicked the memorials off his desk in one sweep.
They scattered across the floor.
Then he roared:
“You still fucking have the face to sit?”
Luo Ling clenched his teeth.
Slowly, he stood.
But his eyes remained fixed on Zheng Fan.
Xu Guang and Huang Qi, still kneeling below, began to tremble.
They were not men who feared death.
If they had been, they would never have done something as absurd as dueling one another over military merit in front of their own troops.
What they feared was the army’s iron hierarchy.
What they feared was military law.
By now, every officer in the army above the rank of Lieutenant Commander knew that Count Pingye had been handling military affairs from the Prince’s command tent in the Prince’s place.
This was not merely a matter of Count Pingye’s personal prestige.
At present, he also carried the temporary legitimacy granted by the Prince of Jingnan.
“Count Pingye!”
Luo Ling finally could not hold himself back.
He shouted.
“Guards!”
“Clang!”
A squad of armored soldiers immediately rushed into the tent.
These men were all personal guards of the Prince of Jingnan.
Ten years earlier, Luo Ling himself had actually been one of Tian Wujing’s personal guards.
The guards drew their sabers and pointed them toward Luo Ling and Wang Mi.
Fortunately, both Chief Commanders, though armed, were not stupid enough to draw their own weapons.
They were men capable of reaching the rank of Chief Commander.
At the very least, they were not idiots like the two kneeling in the middle.
Count Pingye tilted his head slightly.
He looked at Luo Ling.
Then raised one hand, pointed at him, turned the finger downward, and curled it once.
Softly, he said:
“Kneel.”
Luo Ling stood where he was.
He did not move.
Count Pingye simply watched him and waited.
The atmosphere inside the tent grew oppressive.
But the ones truly bearing the pressure were not Count Pingye or Luo Ling.
It was the ring of Prince’s personal guards Zheng Fan had just summoned.
At last, two of the guards stepped forward and placed their hands on Luo Ling’s shoulders.
“General Luo. Please kneel.”
Luo Ling ignored them and remained standing.
The two guards exchanged a glance.
Then both began pressing downward.
Luo Ling braced himself.
He still did not kneel.
The guards hesitated.
Neither dared kick him behind the knees.
“Count Pingye! Why should this general kneel to you?”
Luo Ling growled.
“The Prince is not here. Aside from an imperial envoy of the Son of Heaven, I, Luo Ling, do not believe I am required to kneel to anyone! Unless you take out the Prince’s tiger tally and princely seal and place them in front of me right now. Otherwise...”
Out of the corner of his eye, Count Pingye glanced toward a concealed compartment beneath the desk.
The tiger tally and princely seal were actually inside.
Reviewing memorials required the seal, so the Prince had left it here.
As for the tiger tally... the Prince of Jingnan did not need one to move troops.
Count Pingye could have taken both objects out immediately.
But he did not want to.
If you were going to borrow another man’s tiger skin and leverage his authority, doing it too directly meant you were truly relying only on the wind he lent you.
The wind came.
Then the wind left.
There was an art to this.
An art of keeping the wind behind, or at least keeping part of it clinging to yourself.
Count Pingye pointed toward the memorials scattered across the floor.
“What are those? General Luo has followed the Prince for more than ten years. Surely you know how the Prince commands an army. Surely you know what these are.”
Zheng Fan’s voice rose sharply.
“For all this time, this Count has been reviewing these memorials in the Prince’s place and handling military affairs. You did not know?”
He spread both arms along the back of his chair.
“Stop pretending confusion when you understand perfectly well. We are all our own people. If you insist on splitting hairs over rules, fine. If you insist that this Count take out the tiger tally and princely seal and put them in front of you, fine too. You can stand. Keep standing. Heh...”
Count Pingye’s gaze abruptly sharpened as he looked around at the Prince’s personal guards.
“This Count sits here because the Prince ordered this Count to sit here and handle military affairs. Therefore, when this Count handles military affairs, that is the Prince’s command! General Luo has become a great official now. Impressive, are we? Putting on airs, are we? You have already forgotten the first iron law of the Jingnan Army. What about all of you? Have you forgotten too?”
Count Pingye suddenly shouted:
“Personal guards of the Prince’s residence, hear my command!”
Every guard immediately clasped his hands and awaited orders.
“If General Luo has not knelt within ten breaths, execute him!”
“You dare!” Luo Ling roared.
“One. Two. Three...”
Count Pingye closed his eyes.
One finger tapped lightly against his thigh, almost as though he were idly keeping time.
“Seven. Eight...”
From the corner of his eye, Luo Ling watched the Prince’s guards around him.
Most of them had already begun circulating their qi and blood.
Luo Ling, who had once been a personal guard himself, understood these men.
To them, the Prince’s command was more important than their own lives.
The entire situation felt absurd.
Incomprehensible.
But Luo Ling understood one thing.
They really would raise their sabers and cut him down.
“Nine...”
Luo Ling knelt.
He was not afraid to die.
On the battlefield, he had always been among the first to charge.
But he did not want to die in such a senseless, inexplicable way.
The guards around him released their breath at the same time.
In truth, they could hardly be blamed.
Count Pingye’s established position in their minds, combined with the mere ten breaths Zheng Fan had given them, left no room to distinguish or think.
They could only follow instinct.
And that instinct told them one thing:
Count Pingye had already been handling military affairs on the Prince’s behalf for a very long time.
On the other side, the moment Wang Mi saw Luo Ling kneel, he dropped down as well.
Excellent.
Originally there had been two men kneeling.
Now there were four.
Count Pingye opened his eyes.
He stood, finally leaving his chair.
As he walked slowly toward them, he kneaded his wrist.
Since he had no need to leave camp today, he was not wearing armor.
Instead he wore a close-fitting purple training robe personally embroidered by Fourth Lady, comfortable and breathable.
Luo Ling had knelt.
But his eyes were still filled with anger.
He genuinely had never imagined that after entering this command tent, he would be treated like this.
More than that, he could not understand why Count Pingye was acting this way.
Count Pingye walked first to Wang Mi.
The sight earlier, when Zheng Fan had nearly ordered the Prince’s guards to hack Luo Ling apart on the spot, had completely shaken Wang Mi.
The moment Count Pingye approached, Wang Mi lowered his head immediately.
“This subordinate general knows his crime!”
“Heh.”
Count Pingye laughed.
Then kicked him in the shoulder.
He did not hold back.
Wang Mi was sent sprawling.
Immediately afterward, Count Pingye pointed at Xu Guang and Huang Qi kneeling in the center.
He cursed:
“What were they doing? Fighting over military merit! Two Assistant Generals dueling each other! Less than thirty li from where they fought, there are still two Chu military camps we have not wiped out! The men below do not know better? Fine! But what about you? You are Chief Commanders! Commanders of entire armies! And for the sake of these two idiots, you actually brought your quarrel all the way to the Prince’s central command tent! Do you think the Chu are all dead? Do you think the Chu have all thrown down their weapons and surrendered? Inside Zhennan Pass, outside Zhennan Pass, behind Zhennan Pass, there are still several hundred thousand Chu soldiers! You think this war is already over? Do you know how tightly the people of Yan and the Jin lands have already cinched their belts to support this campaign? Do you know that court officials have already had their salaries cut in half? Do you know that some imperial princes have already come of age, yet because the court has no money, they still have to remain in the princes’ residence? Do you know what it means if this war ends without victory? If Zhennan Pass is not taken, do you know what that means? What it means!”
Count Pingye turned and strode to Luo Ling.
He roared:
“It means the Chu can still come through Zhennan Pass at any time and march north into Jin, which means we must keep a great army stationed here forever just to guard against them! It means countless families in Yan ruined, corpses of the starving covering the roads! It means the Jin lands bought with the blood of Great Yan’s soldiers will once again fill with beacon smoke and endless banditry! It means the realm and state preserved over centuries by generation after generation of our Great Yan forebears spilling their heads and blood could collapse in a single morning! If the two of you were Jin men, I might not even be this angry. But you two... no, add these two idiots as well. Every one of you is a Yan man! How dare you? How could you?”
Count Pingye bent down until his face was close to Luo Ling’s.
Then, slowly, he asked:
“You refuse to accept this?”
“I...”
Luo Ling suddenly discovered he had nothing to say.
“You resent that I ordered you to kneel? Do you understand that the Prince has left the central army? That the Prince no longer reads these memorials? These memorials come to me now. If they had gone to the Prince instead, and the two of you had walked in still glaring and competing like you did earlier, do you believe your heads would already be hanging from the camp gate as a warning?”
Then Count Pingye kicked Luo Ling in the chest as well.
Luo Ling doubled over, mouth open, clearly in pain.
“I’m fucking saving your lives!”
There was, of course, a contradiction in this entire argument.
If the person reviewing the memorials here had truly been the Prince of Jingnan rather than Count Pingye, neither Luo Ling nor Wang Mi would ever have dared walk in acting the way they did earlier.
Count Pingye had quietly switched the premise.
“Xu Guang. Huang Qi. Strip them of their rank as Assistant General. They are to enter the Assault Battalion under sentence. Chief Commander Luo Ling. Chief Commander Wang Mi. For failing to control your subordinates, twenty lashes each before the Prince’s command tent.”
Xu Guang and Huang Qi both felt an enormous weight lift from their hearts.
They had genuinely believed they were going to die.
They had not expected to survive.
Count Pingye turned around, searched through the memorials scattered on the floor, found the one concerning this affair, and held it up.
“I already wrote the ruling earlier. The Prince will not alter a ruling I have made.”
Then he reached into the concealed compartment and took out the princely seal.
His hand slipped.
The seal fell.
It rolled across the floor until it stopped in front of Luo Ling and the others.
Count Pingye carried the memorial over, bent down to pick up the seal, and stamped it.
Luo Ling and Wang Mi were still kneeling.
Count Pingye simply sat down on the floor as well.
He pointed toward Xu Guang and Huang Qi.
“There is another road available. You two may remain under sentence but temporarily retain your former posts. Take your men to my East Mountain Fort and await orders.”
Wang Mi froze.
You could openly poach another commander’s men this shamelessly?
Luo Ling, however, suddenly realized something.
By now the anger and humiliation had vanished from his face.
Almost instinctively, he looked toward Zheng Fan and asked:
“Is there...”
Count Pingye raised one hand and signaled him to stop.
Luo Ling immediately fell silent.
Count Pingye smiled.
“Do not blame me for throwing my weight around so hard just now. Heh. Every truly hard battle, every battle where the most people die... which one have I not personally gone to?”
There was a little self-mockery in his tone.
A little loneliness.
And a little... calm acceptance.
Count Pingye stood.
First he reached down, gripped Luo Ling by the shoulder, and pulled him upright.
Then he walked to Wang Mi and helped him to his feet as well.
Finally, Count Pingye came before Xu Guang and Huang Qi, who were still kneeling.
“This trip with me will be easier to die on than entering the Assault Battalion. But... if you come out alive, not only will your crime be erased by merit, you can advance even farther.”
“We are willing to die for the Count!”
“We are willing to die for the Count!”
...
After all of them had left, only Count Pingye remained inside the command tent.
He bent down and began picking up the memorials he had kicked onto the floor earlier, one by one, blowing the dust from them as he went.
At that moment, the tent flap lifted.
With his back to the entrance, Count Pingye said automatically:
“Hahaha, A’Ming. How was my performance just now?”
“A little impatient, but still fairly effective.”
Count Pingye froze.
Tian Wujing walked over and bent down.
Seeing Zheng Fan stiff there without moving, he simply began helping him gather the memorials from the floor.
“Your Highness...”
Tian Wujing placed the memorials he had picked up into Zheng Fan’s hands.
Then he straightened.
“Pretty good.”
[End of Chapter 548]
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